


A Light For The Lost

by Hierophantastic



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Beast Wirt, Fluff, Happy Ending, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 21:07:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20570891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hierophantastic/pseuds/Hierophantastic
Summary: The Unknown needs a Keeper. The Dark Lantern needs a bearer. The lost souls need a guide.Somehow, these are all Wirt's problems.





	1. The Beast Is Dead! Long Live The Beast!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Lindsey's are Beatrice's family, since I don't think she has a canon last name.

Wirt blew out the lantern and, for a moment, all was quiet. The lantern's flame had died, and the beast with it.

Then there was pain, horrible pain, as if his heart was being torn out of his body. His very _soul_. It was only a moment, but the pain lingered, leaving Wirt gasping for breath. He wanted to ask what was happening, but his head hurt, he couldn't talk, couldn't think, couldn't _see_-

Until he could.

The lantern had relit itself. The Beast lived.

The flickering flame illuminated a grotesque tree, its bark twisted into the shapes of a dozen wailing faces. Antlers and arms reached up and out like branches. The vanquished Beast's expression was contorted into a mix of fury and fear.

A phrase repeated itself over and over in Wirt's mind, like a mantra to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

_-The Unkown is the Forest is the Beast is the Lantern is the Unkown is the Forest-_

It went on and on and Wirt understood. The Lantern needed to stay lit or the Unkown would die with it.

"Wirt?"

Beatrice, Wirt registers somewhere in the back of his mind. He grasps at it, using the memory of her to ground himself, until the pounding headache recedes only to find himself kneeling in the snow with the Lantern in his hands. Mesmerized, he stares at the flame that danced inside it.

His _soul_ inside of it.

"Wirt?" Beatrice calls out again. "Are you okay? What happened?*

The leaves in the trees rustle like gossipping ladies and he has the oddest feeling that if he would just _listen_-

There was the sound of brittle branches snapping and Wirt flinches. He turns to see the Woodsman trying to free Greg from the edelwood that was still growing. It hurts a little, everytime he snaps a twig, but not as much as seeing his little brother so cold and pale.

"Stop that," Wirt says, and both the Woodsman and Beatrice look at him in surprise. Wirt himself is surprised as well by the sound of his voice. It was deeper, smoother, than before.

"Stop?" the Woodsman asks confused. Wirt shakes his head and rose, the Lantern still in his grasp as he approached his brother.

"I wasn't talking to you." 

The Woodsman frowns and his eyes dart from Wirt to the Lantern and back. He'll figure it out soon.

"Er, hello? Could you please let Greg go?"

The edelwood stops its creeping and Wirt could hear the leaves whisper and gossip.

_please please he said please odd Beast new Beast good Beast kind polite please he said_

The edelwood retreats and Greg slumps forward. Wirt almost dropped the Lantern in his haste to catch him before he remembered it held his not-quite-immortal soul in it and sets it down gently.

Greg is heavy and cold and quiet, much like Wirt's heart which sits like a lodestone in his stomach.

"Greg! Greg, wake up. Please Greg you have to wake up." Wirt manages to hold back his sobs as he holds his little brother's unmoving body in his arms.

An arm reaches out, but Wirt grabs the Lantern before the Woodsman could. He holds it close, hoping the warmth might help Greg, and pretends not to notice the way the Woodsman eyes him warily, axe at the ready.

"We need to get him somewhere warm. He's too cold." Wirt's voice is shaking slightly as he speaks, but it was also deep and rich and too familiar. He doesn't want to think about that. Not yet.

Beatrice nods in agreement. "We could bring him home. Mother wouldn't mind," she chirps.

Oh yeah. Wirt had almost forgotten about that. He takes the scissors out of his pocket and offered them to Beatrice. She stares at them in silence. "Wirt..." she says, and there are to many emotions in her voice for him to sort through. Then her demeanor changes. She picks up the scissors with her talons and flies towards her family's home. "Let's deal with that once we're back. First we need to get Greg to safety."

Wirt trudges on through the snow and wind, carrying Greg in his arms and the Lantern in his hand. "Are you just going to lead him to your home?" the Woodsman calls out from behind him, making Wirt stop in his tracks and Beatrice circle back around.

"We don't have time for this, Woodsman! Greg is dying!" Wirt flinches at her words. No, he promises himself, Greg will make it. He has to.

The Woodsman scoffs. "Have you seen him, bluebird?" he says, while pointing to Wirt with his axe. "He carries the Lantern. The _lit_ Lantern."

Beatrice seems to hesitat and shoots Wirt a glance, before turning back to the Woodsman. "I trust Wirt," she says, and Wirt lets out a quiet breath of relief upon hearing that. "Now are you coming or not?"

The Woodsman grumbles and complains, but follows them nonetheless. His eyes never stray from Wirt nor do his hands from his axe.

\---

The Lindsey's and their guests had moved to the Old Mill. They didn't fit in a hole in the ground now that they were human again.

Some of Beatrice's siblings shoot Wirt looks when they think he doesn't notice. He does. He ignores it, however, in favour of sitting by Greg's bedside, one hand wrapped around Greg's cold ones and the other around the Lantern. Greg's frog sits by his friends feet.

Wirt sits still as a statue, his thoughts running in circles. If it wasn't for the Lantern's light, it would be completely dark. Except that it wouldn't be.

Wirt closes the Lantern and a soft glow stil illuminates the room. His eyes are glowing. His eyes are glowing yellow and pink and blue, and the trees whisper and listen, and his voice is smooth and deep-

The Beast is dead, Wirt thinks as he chuckles mirthlessly. Long live the Beast.


	2. The Difference Might Seem Small, But It's There

The sun rises and seems brighter than it was before. Fresh snow reflects the light and shines almost as bright as the day before.

Mrs. Lindsey enters Greg's room, to find the younger brother snoring peacefully, his frog perched on his chest, while the older brother watches them silently. He is still in the same position as he was when she left him alone yesterday.

"Did you get any sleep at all, young man?" she admonishes him dissaprovingly.

"I'm not tired," he says. His eyes never leave his brother and his hand never leave the lantern. His Lantern.

Mrs Lindsey thinks for a moment, then straightens her back and sets the tray with warm soup on the nightstand, before dragging over a stool and seating herself next to Wirt.

"Are you okay?" she asks him softly. Wirt scoffs. He still doesn't meet her eyes.

"I'm fine," he lies, poorly. Mrs. Lindsey shakes her head.

"You poor thing," she coos, "come here." And she reaches over to wrap him in a hug so tight he has no chance of escaping.

It takes a moment for Wirt to react, but it's a good thing when he finally does. First, he leans into her embrace, his head on her shoulder, and the woman can feel the beginnings of antlers scrape her temple.

Then, one hand hesitantly unwraps itself from the Lantern's handle. Mrs. Lindsey takes that as a great sign of trust, seeing as, if her speculations are correct, that Lantern held his soul.

He never lets Greg go, however, nor does he let the tears fall. "It's alright to cry, you know," she tells him.

"Monsters don't cry," he replies, and Mrs. Lindsey wants to both hit him over the head and wrap him up in hugs.

So she does both. He does let go of Greg then to yelp and shield his head from any further onslaught.

"You're not a monster," she tells the boy while he is rubbing what looks to become a painful bruise. Wirt shoots her a blank look.

"What's all this about then?" he says, making a wide gesture to indicate his glowing eyes, growing antlers, and slightly bark-like skin. Transformations sure move fast.

Mrs. Lindsey sighs. "The Beast was corrupted and had lost his way. You won't."

Wirt looks confused. "What do you mean?"

"My grandmother used to tell me tales her grandmother had told her. About the Keeper of the forest. He was a tree-like figure, with antlers and glowing eyes who could commune with nature and kept the forest safe and guided lost souls to their destination."

Wirt frowns in thought. "But the Beast needed edelwood oil to live, and that came from the souls of the lost, didn't it? He almost killed Greg for that!"

Mrs. Lindsey nods, but there's a smirk on her face. "And yet we still haven't needed to refill your lantern." 

Wirt turns his attention back to his Lantern, blinking a few times, more out of thought than need. He opens the Lantern to look at the fuel. He had avoided it before because he didn't want to think about where the oil came from, but he shouldn't have bothered.

Because there was none.

"How- I don't-" he stammers a little more, because the flame is there, burning merrily, but there _is no fuel_. 

Unless it maybe was burning up the laws of physics. Do those even exist, in the Unkown? He wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

"Don't you worry about turning children into trees, dear. You won't need to do any of that." Mrs. Lindsey's calming voice pushes any thought of physics out of his head, because she's right.

He doesn't have to be a monster.

His heart plummets when another thought makes itself known, something he had been avoiding as desperately as the fact that his soul was in a lantern.

He can't go home.

Greg woke not long after.

\---

"So you know how to get home now?"

"Yes, Greg, I'll get you back. Don't worry." Wirt smiled softly at his little brother. "You'll be home safe and sound in no time."

Wirt had changed much in that short night, but he was still changing, and not just physically. Sometimes random bits and pieces of knowledge would just pop up, like when yesterday he suddenly understood the true nature of the Dark Lantern. During breakfast, he suddenly realized he didn't need to eat without any reason as to why he would have come to that conclusion. Not much later, he held his hand to the ground and a small black tortoise burrowed up from the soil. He had looked at it, puzzled, for a moment, until he realized (remembered, it felt like) that they were attracted to his magic.

It was during lunch when he remembered how to get back home.

"We," Greg corrected him, snapping him out his thoughts. "We'll be back in no time. You, me, and Jason Funderberker."

Wirt glances away, unable to meet Greg's confident gaze. "Let's- Let's just go." They had already eaten their fill and said their goodbyes. It wasn't as if they carried anything with them, except for the Lantern, so they didn't need to prepare apack or somehing. They had taken their first steps when an angry voice stopped them.

"So we're just going to let them go?" That was the Woodsman. He still eyed Wirt with distrust, which was understandable Wirt supposed, considering the previous Beast tricked him into grinding children's souls into oil. That didn't mean it wasn't annoying.

Yet, as Wirt turned back, he couldn't help but feel as if there was more going on. The Woodsman is standing just outside, eyes fixed on Wirt, while Mrs. Lindsey holds a restraining hand on his shoulder. His fingers are tight around his axe. But there was something in his eyes, the way he held himself, that seemed so familiar. 

Despair. Loss. The Woodsman was lost.

"Oh," Wirt says quietly, and then a little louder he asks: "You're lost too, aren't you?" The Woodsman seems thrown by the question, his eyes widen a fraction and his fingers loosen before he regains his composure.

"Don't be ridiculous. I know exactly where I am, Beast!" And the way he says it it feels like an insult. Wirt flinches, then licks his dry lips.

"Maybe, but..." He shifts his weight, the snow crunching underfoot. How to phrase this? "Maybe so, but you don't know where you're going do you? I mean, how long did you keep this lantern lit for? What are you going to do now? Do you even remember the way back to your old home"

The Woodsman scowls. "There is nothing for me back there anyway."

"How do you know that?" And Wirt had been thinking about this since the moment he realized the soul of the Woodsman's daughter wasn't inside the Lantern. "The Beast lied about her being in the Lantern. Maybe he lied about her death. Did you ever see a body?"

He could see the moment where the Woodsman understood what he was saying. It was quite hard to miss. His axe slipped from his grasp, his eyes widened, his mouth formed an O, and he became white as a sheet.

"Oh, Anna..."

Wirt stayes silent, giving the Woodsman a moment to think. Then, he extends a hand.

"So, will you trust me to lead you home?"


	3. Home Is Just Ahead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The woodsman doesn't have a canonical name, and if they ever gave Anna a last name in the comics I couldn't find it. So I made it up, just like Wirt's and Beatrice's.
> 
> Man, does any main character have a canon last name?

Christopher Hawthorne knows he's an old man and the weight of the years is only a little heavier today, with Wirt- no, the Beast, stretching out his hand to him, than yesterday, when he found out his daughter had never been in the Lantern.

He knew he was old, and had felt it, ever since Anna disappeared from his life. He doesn't know exactly how old he is, however. Time, like so many things, is confusing in the Unkown. Just like locations and distance. Some days it took five minutes to get from the mill to the newest edelwood and then the trip back would take ages. Ages in which he would steal glances at the Lantern, and imagined he could see his daughter in the flame, dancing like she had once done in the summer sun. Fear would gnaw at his mind, that he would be too late and Anna would be lost forever. Not that keeping the Lantern lit ever mattered. He shold have just let his daughter go.

Instead, he had wandered. His measure of a succesful day depended on how much oil he found, and the only places worth remembering were the edelwood trees and the old mill. He never returned to his old house, not since the moment he stumbled on his daughter's scarf, ripped and torn, and the Beast's silken voice told him about oil and souls and Lanterns.

The new Beast was right. Somewhere, in between his wanderings from one tree to the next, he forgot how to go home. Or maybe he didn't want to remember the way back to an empty house. 

But is it really empty? The thought felt dangerous. The Beast's words sounded logical. He had never found a body, just a scarf. What was the harm in looking? But it all felt so dangerously familiar. That outstretched hand, the Lantern, the glowing eyes.

Except these eyes were brightly coloured instead of a haunting white. And...

Young Gregory was waiting patiently, a smile on his face and a frog in his arms. The least Christopher could do was come along to make sure the Beast didn't claim the young boy's soul.

"Fine," he says, voice tired. "I'll follow you. Lead the way, Beast." He picks up his axe and gestures with it towards the road and the Beast took it as the admittance it was. Not an admittance of trust, but that there was a difference between this one and his predecessor. The Beast nodded, his conical hat almost falling off now that it was displaced by his new antlers, and turned to the road.

"Then come. It's this way."

\---

The snow gives the entire forest a peaceful atmosphere. Wirt had given up his blue cloak to Greg, who had been shivering, and was using his Lantern to warm himself. The Woodsman trails behind them, shooting wary glances at Wirt now and then. It's quiet, except for Greg's singing. 

_"We're going home! We're going home!_

_Out of the woods and the Unknown!_

_We're going home! We're going home!_

_Over the rushing river, away from the cold snow!"_

Eventually, the Woodsman interrupts with a gruff tone. He just got snow in his shoe and it's starting to melt, soaking his sock. "Do you actually know the way to my house, Beast, or are you just luring us away to turn us into trees?"

Wirt rolls his eyes. "Firstly, I would never do that to anyone and especially not Greg. Secondly, it's not about knowing the way, it's about knowing where you're going."

"What's that supposed to mean?" the Woodsman demands. 

"Do you 'know the way' to any place? The mill, for example?"

"Of course! It's that way." He points his axe down the road they came from. Wirt nods.

"Exactly. It's that way. No intricate turns or dead ends. All you have to do is know where it is and where you're going, and you're set." Wirt looks back over his shoulder. His glowing eyes find the Woodsman's. "And your house is this way. So don't worry, Woodsman, home is just ahead."

The Wodsman grumbles a little before speaking up again, "I have a name you know! It's Christopher Hawthorne, not 'Woodsman'."

Wirt's eyebrows raise. "I did not know that. Nice to meet you, Mr. Hawthorne, I am Wirt Hailey, not 'Beast'."

Christopher grumbles a bit more, but is quiet for the rest of the journey.

\---

Eventually, the trees gave way to a small clearing. Wirt knew they were getting close before, and now he knows he was right. There, at the edge of a path diverging from the main road, was a small brick house. The lawn was well-maintained and cordoned of by a wooden fence.

Christopher had stopped walking.

Wirt turns back. Greg was playing with Jason Funderberker, not paying attention to their companion's behaviour. In a few strides, Wirt stands next to the old man.

"Shall we?" He gestures to the house with one hand as he nudges Christopher with the other. His Lantern was put away in a satchel Mrs. Lindsey had given him. Christopher is quiet when he steps through the gate, quiet when he walks up to the front door, and quiet when his knuckles rap softly on the hard wood.

He's quiet when no one opens. He knocks a little harder. Wirt can practically hear his thoughts plummeting into a pit of despair and fear. He knew the old man had been cautious in his hope but hopeful nonetheless, and that hope must be slipping from his grasp now. 

But soft footsteps crunches the snow behind them, and Greg excitedly greets the newcomer with, "Oh hello miss! You wouldn't happen to be the Woodsman's daughter would you? Because we thought she was dead but it turned out she wasn't and the door is locked."

The girl has brown hair, is dressed in dark grey and black clothes that stand in stark contrast with the snow, and seems to be a few years older than Wirt. There is an axe in her hand and a bundle of wood over her shoulder. To keep the winter's bite away, Wirt presumed. He wondered what Christopher thought of his daughter going out into the woods to chop wood so she could stay alive during the winter. He probably wouldn't appreciate the poetic symmetry.

On her part, Anna Hawthorne stands frozen on her front porch and it has nothing to do with the freezing wind or the cold snow. There is a small boy with warm brown eyes and a teapot on his head carrying a frog. There is another boy, his skin strangely bark-like and antlers protruding from the side of his head, displacing the red hat he wore. That and his glowing eyes reminds her of the stories her father used to tell her, of the Beast that roamed the woods. She had never seen it herself, so she can't be sure, but maybe this boy is the Beast?

If so he can't be all bad, because there, knuckles raised as if to knock, stands an old man. His gray hair and balding head is topped by a black stove-pipe hat and he is dressed in dark colours. His face is unmistakeably wrinklier than when she had last seen him, worry lines and creases having replaced smooth skin, but his head is half-turned to lookat her and his eyes are filled with so much - joy, longing, regret- that her grip on her axe weakens and she hears more than sees it falling to soft snow since she can't turn her eyes away from her _father_.

When the word finally leaves her lips it's heavy, filled with both sadness and joy. It breaks the ice that seemed to have been holding both of them back, and Anna's not sure who initiated the embrace, only that she never ever wants it to end.

"Father," she says, or tries to say since her words are choked and muffled as she presses her face into his broad shoulder. She thinks she hears him say her name, but they can talk later -and they, will there is much to talk about. For now, there is a pair of arms around her shoulders and a shaky laugh in her ears and everything feels more right than it has done in years.


End file.
